Holy longing, homesick for God.... Isaiah says: Everyone that thirsts, come to the waters; And you that have no money, come buy wine and milk. Are you thirsty? Would you like some delicious wine or milk? Do you thirst for something —  something deep and big and magnificent? Do you sometimes feel homesick for something vague and indefinable? If so then you probably have holy longing. Or in the words of David in the Psalm: O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a weary land where there is no water. That's what holy longing is — that kind of thirst; that feeling of being homesick for God. Are you thirsty for the Divine — like David or Isaiah? Do you have holy longing?

We've gone through a little dog drama in our Brown County neighborhood the last couple of weeks. Our neighbors had a sweet little puppy named Buddy — a cross between a Rotweiler and a Black Lab, around 9 months old. The puppy belonged to 14 year old Robert — not his real name, but a good kid. This family has been through some tough times lately. So they more or less abandoned their dog — stopping by every couple of days to feed him. The drama began with Buddy bonding with our dogs, and hanging around at our place. At night the puppy would scratch at our doors and cry and would sleep on our porch. So Jan and I went to talk to our neighbors. The home situation was bad, and the poor young boy wasn't equipped to deal with everything going wrong. He asked us if we could feed his dog for a few days, maybe a week or two. We said yes, but I was hesitant. My concern was simple. I know that dogs need a pack — just like wolves do. It's in a dog's nature to want to be part of a pack. With his own family or "pack" falling apart, I thought this puppy would "pack-up" with us. I was right — even though I put on the best cold front I could muster. This puppy found himself a new pack — us — and went straight to heaven. What could be better then playing rough with two big Elkhounds and getting two square meals a day? He found himself a new pack and he calmed right down. Some instinctual yearning for community, for a pack, was met by us and our dogs.

This is true for all dogs, as far as I know. They have an instinct like their wolf cousins and ancestors to be part of a pack, to be part of something bigger than themselves.

Nature overflows with similar instincts. Instinct drives salmon to swim upriver over nearly insurmountable odds to spawn and then die. Instinct drives birds to migrate south and north. On and on the examples go. Whales, bears, ants, bacteria, and mitochondria — all driven by deep necessity. It's astonishing really. Instinct pushes and nature throbs. It's what Dylan Thomas called the force that through the green fuse drives.

The paleontologist and Christian mystic, Teilhard de Chardin, said that God is luring everything in the universe to himself. St. Augustine expressed a similar sentiment: our hearts are restless till they find their rest in thee. "The same spirit that drives oxygen to unite with hydrogen makes a baby cry when it is hungry, sends the adolescent out in hormonal restlessness, and calls Mother Teresa to a church to pray" (Ronald Rolheiser, The Holy Longing, 18). Yearning and restlessness, longing and desire. Nature bubbles and burns: desire's in the heart of things.

We too are part of nature. We too are filled with holy restlessness. We too are homesick for God. It's human nature.

But here's the real question: What do we do with our holy longing? How do we deal with homesickness for God? And that's the rub; what do we do with our homesick heart?

We can choose the extremes. On the one hand is the numbing path of self medication. We can watch too much TV; drink too much; take another valium; eat till we sleep; and then sleep the hours away. How do I numb my aching heart? How do I forget my homesick self? What's your opium of choice? How do you get numb? I suppose the numbing way is effective. But it leads to only grey despair. Not recommended.

The other extreme is no better: the path of Eros, of excess and fire. Icarus flew too close to the sun. This is path of Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain. It's better to burn out than to fade away. The obsessed artist who doesn't sleep. The manic intellectual burning the midnight oil. The narcissistically grandiose. But when you're that close to the fire, your wax wings are sure to melt. Icarus fell from the fire into the sea. You need insulation to get near the electricity. We need a black wire going down to the ground. Without it, that day's on fire — and you'll know the purity of pure despair (Roethke). Sure this is a path, a way to deal the homesick heart. But excess leads to manic burnout. And it's not good stewardship of the gift that is you.

Is there another way? You bet. We have a middle way, a better way. One way to deal with our homesick heart is through the classic disciplines of the Christian life. Praying, meditating, reading scripture, fasting, giving, doing good works, fighting the good fight of justice and solidarity, coming to church — all of these disciplines keep us on the way. But the disciplines have to become habits of the heart. A habitual disciplined spiritual life; every day. So we embrace the classic disciplines of the church. Our hearts are restless till they find their rest in thee. How do we deal with our restless hearts? Simply point our hearts toward God in prayer and praise. Embrace the classic disciplines of our faith. Surely there are other ways to deal with holy longing while avoiding the extremes. But we in the church have this immense resource: our tradition, our past, and more to the point — all the centuries of spiritual wisdom, the disciplines of the faith. It's our heritage, our gift to an aching world, to our aching selves. I encourage you, I encourage us, to embrace the classic disciplines of the Christian way.

I realize I'm sounding very pious. And I guess that's okay, though I usually don't think of myself as a pietist. But let me offer a couple of other points to compensate. First, we don't do the spiritual life perfectly. And that's just fine. Often I'm very devoted to some of the disciplines; sometimes I'm not. That's fine. God's love is a free gift, and we can't earn faith. It's always already gift. So our wholeness before God isn't something we crank up by praying or fasting or giving. Grace is free. I'll say it simply. We don't have to embrace the disciplines, we get to embrace them.

Second, even if we do embrace the disciplines — let's say we go whole hog, fasting, hours in prayer, etc. — even so, we never really get rid of our restless heart. What we get is the peace that passes understanding. That means we don't understand it, a peace we'll never understand. And if I understand correctly, I believe that our homesick condition remains. Holy longing is a gift. Thank God for holy longing as it puts us on the path — like a dog looking for a pack, or a salmon on the spawn. But we remain an exilic people. Like the ancient Israelis we are in exile from the promised homeland. The ache of homesickness doesn't go away just because you take care of yourself. Until we are fully reunited with God — until we come to the other side — we remain hungry. But there's hunger and then there's hunger. By setting our sight on God, we don't see the face of God — only God's back. And that's plenty for a start. Though we do get a foretaste of the feast to come — it's only a foretaste. The banquet is still out there. So we remain hungry.

Holy longing, homesick for God. Are you thirsty or hungry? Would you like some delicious wine or milk? Do you long for something — something deep and big and magnificent? Do you sometimes feel homesick for something vague and indefinable? If so then you should thank God. You suffer from holy longing. Be grateful. Your holy longing puts you on the path. Magnetic true north calls out to you, summoning you home. Let your compass quiver.   —– Amen.